Now showing on the WAG
City’s flagship gallery acts as a movie screen for video artists until Jan. 29
Stacey Abramson

For the next two months, several screens around the city will play host to unique and fresh perspectives in both video artwork and local curation.

In the Blink of an Eye is a selection of some of the best and most promising video artists and filmmakers from the country, curated for the Winnipeg Art Gallery by performance artists Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan. All the works have been commissioned for the exhibition, ensuring a fresh look from each of the 12 local and national artists.

Dempsey and Millan have always been groundbreaking artists, and their curatorial work follows in line with their knack for innovation. Although the pieces in Blink will be shown in individual kiosks throughout the WAG, broader audiences will be exposed to the collection when it is projected on the side of the WAG from 6 p.m. till dawn through the show’s first weekend, ending Jan. 29. Blink will also appear before films at Globe Cinema.

“It is unfortunate that the general public... is unaware that experimentation by artists feeds the entertainment industry,” Dempsey and Millan explain in their curatorial statement.

By taking these works out of the gallery and into the public, Dempsey and Millan are breaking down barriers by creating a cinematic street-side atmosphere.

Blink not only looks at the work of heavy hitters such as Rebecca Belmore, Richard Fung and Dana Claxton but also at the phenomenal work of some Winnipeg artists.

Daniel Barrow is a force to be reckoned with, and his latest work, Artist Statement, is yet another testament to his talent. Both the black humour in his narration and the pioneering lo-fi animation style he has developed in previous work come together in this short about a topic many artists fear is clichéd: that of truthful identity.

The works of Divya Mehra and Sandee Moore deal with cultural absurdity. Mehra, currently studying at Columbia University, taps into racial stereotypes that many face when two cultures collide. Mixing Bollywood esthetics with cheeky comments on cultural identity, Mehra’s Pants is one of the funniest pieces in the series.

Moore looks at her Ukrainian heritage by tapping into the one part of herself she sees as authentically Ukrainian. Her beautiful pencil-drawing animations and her self-examining dialogue come to a hilarious end that involves the best use of Ukrainian folk dancers seen anywhere.

The medium of video and its relationship with time are explored in Mike Hoolboom’s I Miss You. Looking through the fuzzy lens at the viewer, Hoolboom addresses temporality with a sentimental but sharp approach.

The variety of work in Blink is fascinating, and Dempsey and Millan’s curation allows the works, in all of their experimental and artistic glory, to powerfully affect audiences.